Every day is on the go

Male and female Nyala 

So this last week we focused on off roading with our 4x4 course. We split into two groups and so the first two day I was with the group doing game-drives in the morning and evening learning of plants and all that jazz. For Thursday and Friday w started our theory part of the 4x4, a lot of book work and theory goes into this stuff. Like tire pressure and the whole working mechanics from the engine to the wheels.

Red Toad

Along with this is about 150 extra pages of work books to do , along with about 100 in the normal course and game drives and camp chores and normal study and photo editing and odds and ends so time is not on my side. Really the only reason I’d choose to be a vampire over a werewolf (In the Twilight versions of them) is that vampires don’t have to sleep, although it’s nice to wake up refreshed after a good night’s sleep I’d be nice to not have to do it during times like these.  

Expect another post in a day or two, tomorrow is a whole day trip to Kruger and a lecture on Elephants so another long day and late night with studying in between, but can't say it isn't worth it.

The Dragon Mountains

So during the off week 6 other students and I went for a day trip up to the mountains about two hours from campus. It’s called the Drakensberg mountains and in Afrikaans it means the Dragon Mountains 

 The name fits the place quite nicely as it seems to be something from Middle earth itself and it’s quite easy to imagine a dragon flying through its deeply cut gorges draped in mist and perching a lot the sheer rock ledges overlooking the river.

 The hike we did took about 5 hours and we where glad to have the fog during the first part as it heated up after the morning

This is what part of the trial went through, some of those vines have thorns easily 2 inches long

 A Dward Flat lizard, the only dragon we came across

It took about 2 hours to get form the top down to the rivers below, and these rivers and waterfalls lead to the large river that runs through the mountains. After two hours of walking these would be a perfect place to cool off.

  

These mountains run have a scenic rout, after our walk we grabbed lunch back at the top and then went from look out to look out following the main river and deep cliffs down and around until the sun set

These weeks

So this is the end of the week off, gotta return the rental car and pick up one or two more things before being brought back. It’s about an hour to the nearest town. Although they say town it’s more like a big four way stop with a airport, don’t even have a nando’s. But it’s what we got and they have a nice biltong shop (biltong- is a variety of dried, cured meat that originated in Southern Africa).

Next week we are learning about viewing potentially dangerous animals (VPDA) and we have a 4x4 off roading course in the game reserve, and one of those guys said he’ll bring a few of his old knives to see if I wanna buy one off him (cus you can never have too many sharp pointing things)… So all in all it should be another great busy week.

First Semester over

So the first few weeks are over, finally have time to do things other than study, since I was a week behind I had to catch up on things as well as keep up with what was going on. But it’s now coming to the end of the week off and looking forward to the upcoming activities. Should be able to keep up with this now but here is a few things from the past few weeks.

Cape Turtle Dove- taking flight

European Roller- Grasshopper lunch

These are from our trip to the reptile park 

Black Mamba

Python

Chinese Alligator 

Snouted Cobra

Snouted Cobra

Puff Adder

Out on Game Drives

It's about time

So I have had some issues, they have ocupided most of my time these past few weeks and given back loads of stress in return. And all for this little visa sticker in my passport.

First the fbi background check wasn't aloud to be processed since it had my brother's name on the return address insted of mine (even though they wouldn't send it direct to me anyway) and then not saying anything to anyone for 4 days.

Then the greek goverment spent about a week sending me back and forward and back again with all these little details that I needed to do in order to re-apply for my residency permit, apparently just giving a detailed list wasn't a good idea and they preffer their people to do little bits at a time and then bring it back to get the next 'challenge'.

Then after all that the SA embassy spent about a week trying to conferm I was a student at the school becuse aparently they kept getting transfered to the wrong number.

But here i am, finally. I picked up my passport at 11am and rushed to make the 3pm flight to Dubi and have about 12 hours before taking the 6 hour flight down here. A short stay in a hostel and I am curently writing in the van that is taking me and 10 other people on the 6 hour drive up to hoedsprout to be picked up by the school and play keepup while making up the whole week behind i am becuse of these delays. Oh and then there was the miscount of passangers on the van and they almost left me at the restop while waiting for my breakfast to come out. On the bright side we did just pass a Nando's.

The end.